


Cold

by leoperidot



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Gen, So yeah, and it's old, and that's not sarcastic, but i'm proud of it, completely and utterly platonic, crutchie is irish, i can't write dialects, like both my first fic that i wrote and my first fic on here, so uh this is my first fic ...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-23 10:13:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6113302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leoperidot/pseuds/leoperidot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Crutchie curls in an alley, freezing and alone.</p>
<p>Jack Kelly strolls down that alley on his way to the boarding house.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold

**Author's Note:**

> This was posted on my Tumblr back in September so it's super old, but it's still one of my favorite things I've ever written. This is about 4 years before canon, so I consider Crutchie about 12 and Jack about 12 or 13. Also, I'm terrible at writing in dialects so oops.

Charlie is cold.

He supposes this isn’t a surprise; after all, it’s December in New York, and he’s a street kid. There’s not a lot in his life that could be described as warm.

This cold isn’t normal, though. This cold is different. This cold is the kind of cold that gets beneath your skin. Makes you feel things. See things.

It’s too cold to snow, a blessing and a curse.

Charlie curls close around his crutch, wishing his bad leg didn’t hurt so much, or he would be able to bring it closer in for warmth.

Warmth. Even the word sounds foreign in this night of biting, bracing cold.

He closes his eyes, but then snaps them open. He can’t sleep. He’s tired beyond imagination, but he doesn’t dare sleep. There’s a team of two fellas he’s seen, probably brothers, who he’s seen beating up vulnerable kids.

Kids like Charlie.

Charlie shivers. He stole a huge brown coat from the front steps of a building a couple days ago. He never thought he’d go as low as stealing, but it’s not really stealing if the thing was abandoned anyway, is it? And he was cold. He could’ve died without this coat.

Maybe he’ll die even with this coat.

Stop. Stop thinking about this. Charlie, stop worrying yourself with maybes.

“You! Boy!” a deep voice jolts him out of his thoughts. Lucky and unlucky. A blessing and a curse.

Charlie looks up, but just barely.

It’s the owner of the pub he’s chosen to hide behind.

“Get lost!”

He stands up. He’s numb all over.

“And faster, you idiot crip!”

“Crip”. The word is a stab in the back, a punch in the face. A reminder of everything that’s wrong with him.

He hates the word.

He moves away as quickly as he possibly can–not fast enough. He’s never fast enough. Because he’s a cripple–a crip.

It’s a couple of blocks before Charlie is too cold, too tired to keep walking, and so collapses against the brick of a building. A restaurant.

He realizes that he’s sitting on something–a piece of wood, a sign, he thinks. He scooches to reveal the text.

No Irish need apply.

Just his luck.

Charlie stares at that sign.

Suddenly, everything piles up in his mind.

He thought America was going to be a wonderful place. His ma told him that in America, the streets are paved with gold and there are more jobs than people. Nobody in America has to live on nothing but potatoes for days, weeks even.

His ma was always optimistic. When Da was sick, she never let her happy face down for Charlie and Katie.

Then Katie got sick.

Then Da died.

She even kept her spirits up then. Katie was younger than Charlie and so she didn’t know what was going on–and it all happened so fast. Katie had the same thing as Da, the polio, the polio that was so terrifying. So fast, a one-two punch. The diagnosis and then, six days later–Charlie remembers things like this, days, numbers–Da died.

That was when Ma decided to move.

They were going to America, she told them. America, where every man could be a king if he worked hard enough. Where the streets were lined with gold and silver.

Irish and a cripple. Who thought he was going to do well in America–he did. He thought he was going to have a great life in America.

Ha.

That sign, God, that sign is a representation of everything wrong with him–and he can’t ever leave reminders of how worthless, how pathetic he is.

He’s crying, he realizes suddenly.

How pathetic.

“Hey, kid,” a soft voice says. Instantly, a reflex almost, Charlie curls into himself, grabbing his crutch close for safety. Pathetic.

“It’s okay,” the voice says. “I won’t hurt you.”

But how can he trust this faceless voice, this voice he doesn’t know?

A hand is extended to Charlie. He doesn’t take it. Not yet.

He finally looks up at the person attached to the voice and the hand. It’s a boy, a dark-haired boy about two or three years older than him, wearing a grey cap and a smile on his face.

Charlie wants to trust the boy. Oh God, he wants to trust him. But he knows what the boy is doing. He wants Charlie to trust him. He’s probably in league with those brothers he’s heard of.

“You can trust me,” the boy assures him.

“B–” Charlie starts, and then realizes how dangerous it could be to speak. This kid could soak him right here if he hears his accent. So he just doesn’t respond.

“Kid, can you talk?”

He nods.

“Not much to say, ah?”

Charlie shakes his head. As long as the boy’s questions are yes or no, he’s good.

He has a feeling that they won’t be yes or no for much longer.

Charlie suddenly wants nothing to do with this strange boy. This strange boy who wants Charlie to trust him. Who will probably take advantage of him in some way. Because Charlie will trust him. But he won’t. He’s stopping this right now, he’s leaving, good riddance and don’t follow me–

The boy follows him.

“Kid–”

He tries to go faster, but his fast walk is a leisurely stroll for anyone with two actually functioning legs. The boy catches up to him easily. He hates that he can’t outrun this kid, can’t lose him.

“Where are you going?”

Away from you.

The boy blocks Charlie’s path. “Kid, just let me explain myself.”

“No!” The word’s out of Charlie’s mouth before he can stop it.

The boy is startled. “Youse can talk, kid?”

A panicky feeling comes over Charlie. He has to get away from this kid–now that he knows he can talk, he’ll expect him to actually talk, and that’s where he’ll find out–you can’t tell his accent from one word anyway, so danger isn’t imminent–he needs to get away.

He limps away as fast as he possibly can, back in the direction they came from.

“Oh my God,” the boy says, running and blocking Charlie’s path again. “What is it, kid?” he shouts. “What you got to hide?”

Charlie looks down at the ground. He can tell which footprints are his and which are the other boy’s. The boy’s feet are larger than his. And with Charlie’s, there’s only a right footprint, just a line in the snow where there should be the left footprint. And a dot. From his crutch.

There’s a long pause.

The boy sighs. “I’m Jack. Jack Kelly.”

Charlie nods, only to indicate that he understood the boy–that he understood Jack.

“Youse got a name?”

Charlie doesn’t answer.

“Don’t feel right just calling you ‘kid’ when I should be calling you a real name.”

He still doesn’t give the boy–Jack–an answer. It’s weird. He doesn’t want Jack to know his real name, but at the same time, he almost does. In a way, he wants to keep his distance, but he also wants to shed his old life–if he does end up making friends with this boy–which he should not–and Jack might make him become a newsboy–he’s seen them, but he doesn’t think he could be a good newsboy–but Jack is nice, and Charlie is wondering if his intentions really are earnest.

“What if I called you Crutchie?”

Charlie tilts his head ever so slightly.

“Crutchie?”

It could be worse. The other day he heard one newsboy call another one “Finch”. He thinks there’s also a Buttons, and possibly a Jojo? So he could certainly have it worse than just “Crutchie”.

Charlie nods.

He looks at Jack, who’s smiling. “Good. Crutchie.”

There’s a pause.

“So, ah, kid–Crutchie–” Jack smiles at Charlie, congratulating himself on the nickname use–“any reason why youse don’t talk?”

This question. He should’ve known it was coming.

“Crutchie?”

How can he answer this?

Jack sighs and switches tactics. “Crutchie, youse got folks?”

Charlie shakes his head, feeling a pang in his chest.

“No place, either, ah?”

Nowhere. Another shake of his head.

“Ise got an idea, but I don’t know–” Jack glances at Charlie’s bad leg. “There’s lots of walking youse gotta do.”

Crutchie shrugs.

“You need to pay rent, but I can spotcha tonight. Then tomorrow, youse sell with us, kid.” Jack smiles. “There’s a buncha walking but you can handle that, right?”

Charlie nods. He can do it–he hopes.

Jack smiles. “There’s a lot of us, kid. A lot of guys. We all sell papes–youse probably seen at least one if us. We’s around.”

He nods again.

There’s a long pause that hangs in the air.

“But–ah–you expecting to sell papes without talking?”

Charlie looks at Jack’s feet.

“I’m just saying, kid, youse gotta talk.”

Charlie nods slowly.

“Ain’t tryin’ to be mean.”

Another nod. He isn’t sure how to think of Jack–he wants so badly to trust him–but he somehow can’t–but why–“I can talk.” The words are out of his mouth before he means them to be. “I talk when necessary.”

Understanding suddenly washes over Jack’s face like warm bathwater. “Irish?”

“Yes.”

Such a short word. So significant.

“It’s fine, kid. I don’t judge.”

And then Jack leads Charlie out of the alley and toward the Newsboy’s Lodging House and Charlie wishes he had trusted him more in the first place.

Jack Kelly.

Who calls him Crutchie.

Who set off alarm bells.

Who Charlie probably shouldn’t have trusted.

Who Charlie trusts anyway.


End file.
